The first two-thirds of the video contains a great deal of post-production
digital effects by Peter Marin (nominated for a 2002 Best Special Effects
in a Video CADS award for his work). Marin manipulated most of the private
and piercings shots into very abstract, line and watercolor-like drawings.
The final third is Björk’s direct-to-camera performance.
For the boldest effect, Knight directed Chaudoir to shoot the piercings by
placing the Sony Mini DV camera on the women’s bodies—mostly chests, arms,
and shoulders—and getting as physically near as he could while
maintaining a close, macro focus on a wide-angle lens.
The
sole light source was diffused sunlight shining through the ceiling
windows of the second floor daylight studio. This studio gave a
“northlight” look and had a rawness to it that matched the subject
matter, Chaudoir says.
A
nurse and piercing unit were on hand, but no thimble, so the bleeding most
often came from casted girls’ thumbs as they pushed the needles in. “It
was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever filmed because I felt I was
on the verge of throwing up,” Chaudoir says. “I liked to actually only
watch it by the video monitor rather than with my eyes as it were because
it was just too much.”
Björk pierced her own ear at the shoot, but all other piercings were the
casted girls’ (The producer, Gainsbury and Whiting, casted about five
young women who were into subculture and piercings).
Knight gave Björk a Sony Mini DV camera and asked her to shoot her own
private scenes. “To try and do an honest job of documenting or presenting
somebody’s intimate love life, there really is no cause for me to be there
whatsoever,” Knight says. “She asked me to make a film about her love
life, so I merely gave it back to her and said ‘Film your love life.’”
Chaudoir saw himself as primarily brought in for shooting the film
footage. He and Knight planned that, when the
music stops and it’s just Björk singing “I love him. I love him. . .”, it
would look like an actual break in the video, making a very poignant and
revelatory moment.
“We
discussed how to do something with the moving image that was a mirror of
what was happening musically. . . . It had to have a different look from
the video footage and from the digitally altered video footage. I knew it
had to look as luscious as possible,” Chaudoir says. “It’s stripping away
the artifice and the digital effects, into the raw image of Björk.”
Chaudoir felt that the best film stock for Knight would be the 5274 Kodak
200 ASA tungsten film. “It’s a gorgeous film stock. There’s no grain. It’s
very rich and velvety,” he says. He shot in the super 35mm format because
he wanted to give it a very large, clean negative. As he always does when
using 35mm film, he shot on an Arri 435ES, shooting for the most part at
25 fps and occasionally at 37 ½ fps. He remembers the stop being around
2.8. He used Primo Classic lenses, the 100mm for the close-up shot and the
50mm for the head-to-toe and mid-shots.
“He
[Knight] wanted to see what other people had to offer,” Chaudoir says.
Tired of endless music videos where the star constantly addresses the
camera and lip-synchs throughout, Chaudoir suggested having Björk
lip-synch and look into the camera only for some of the last lines. He
also suggested using a track so they could move closer to her
as she sings these lines (which was finally chosen) or move closer before
she sings them—“so it’s like a reveal of her,” he says.
There wasn’t a script, so some improvisation made it to the final cut.
“Initially we were going to do this one close up [just one move into her],
but I think as it went on we thought, Well, why don’t we do a mid-shot?
Why don’t we do a head-to-toe shot?” They also realized that they needed
to roll a minute or so before the last lines to capture the most intense
performance. A few takes were of the entire song. Chaudoir estimates over
25 in all, and that the chosen one was somewhere between take 10 and 20.
Knight shot stills of Björk in her wedding dress, using the lighting style
he wanted Chaudoir to re-create for the film. It appeared Knight used a
ring light; he’d also put Björk slightly beyond the exposure. The pearls
on her dress were very alive and reflected light, Chaudoir says, but her
skin tone was underexposed. Chaudoir and Knight performed a prelight.
Chaudoir used a spark to show, one at a time, his lights’ effects and how
they may best mimick the stills’ lighting. In the end, the duplication was
simply achieved: Chaudoir placed 4 single bank, Kino Flos, used without
their reflectors, on each side of the
camera, about six to eight feet from Björk, between the camera and her.
They used smaller Kino Flos for the tracking mid- to close-up shots.